Tag: Runner’s World

A change is as good as a rest

Every year I promise myself that this will be the year that my holiday will truly live up to its name. I will relax and do nothing for a whole week. I’ll pack a bikini, a vat of sun cream and a stack of novels and start each day with an epic lie-in, before bagging a sun lounger by the pool.

Then summer arrives, and once again I find myself cramming an extensive range of running kit into my suitcase, along with my wetsuit, bike shoes and pedals (that’s if I’m not taking the bike itself) and a selection of portable exercise tools. Last year in Greece, I was up by 7am every day in a bid to beat the full force of the sun. I ran 27 miles, cycled 113 miles, swam 3 miles, went kayaking, waterskiing and paddleboarding, oh, and did core exercises every day. Not everyone’s idea of a holiday (including me, at times) but though I came home bodily tired, I was mentally rejuvenated.

It’s easy to underestimate how energising newness can be when you’re feeling fatigued and jaded. You’re convinced bed rest is what you need, when maybe it’s simply a new routine – or a new route.

When we are on terra incognita – be it Skiathos or Skegness – our senses awaken. The air smells different. The light looks different. The ground feels different under our feet.

In Thailand, on an early morning run to a temple at the top of a hill, I met a local runner and ended up having breakfast with him and his family. That was over 20 years ago and I can still recall the morning mist shrouding the temple’s gilted tower – and the fiery rice porridge we ate. I don’t recall our average pace or how far the run was, though – which brings me to another good reason to step away from the familiar. Comparisons become meaningless. You can’t berate yourself for running your staple 5-miler slower than usual when the terrain, altitude, temperature and elevation are all different.

It’s precisely because they are different that holiday runs imprint themselves so vividly in our memories. New environments keep our minds and bodies guessing. You can’t slip into autopilot like you do on the well-trodden routes near home; you’ve got to step out your comfort zone and experience something new. Where does that road lead to? Will I come face to face with a wild dog/snake/grumpy goat if I go along that track? (Unlikely in Skegness, I’ll admit.) I wonder if there’s a path to the top of that hill?

All of this, quite possibly, will lead to getting lost. If I had a euro for every holiday run on which I’ve got lost, I could afford to upgrade to Strava Summit, and sit tight in the knowledge that Jeff will always be able to locate and rescue me. But losing your way can have its benefits.

Once I got lost among redwood groves on the return leg of a run up Mount Tam, north of San Francisco, and ended up bearing witness to the most incredible blaze of sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge. Another time, I found myself on the wrong side of a tall metal fence bordering sea cliffs in Portugal and had to summon up every ounce of courage to overcome my fear of heights and make my way along the narrow and vertiginous path.

Holidays force us to change our habits. And although habits can be useful (they allow us to get things done without too much conscious thought) they can also dig us into ruts that don’t allow us to challenge our boundaries, mental or physical.

Your fortnight in Florida or weekend in Wales provides the perfect opportunity to push back against the walls of routine. It doesn’t necessarily mean packing your running shoes – as I found in Greece last year, there are many other ways to work up a sweat and recharge your motivation. But then again, those trusty shoes don’t take up much space. And who knows what holiday memories you’ll create together?

This blog first appeared in Murphy’s Lore, my column in Runner’s World magazine.

 

 

 

 

 

In praise of Jim Fixx – pioneer of running for the masses

One Sunday morning in the late 1970s, my dad suddenly appeared in the kitchen donning a tracksuit and towelling headband and announced he was going jogging. He returned, 20 minutes later, red-faced and sweat soaked, but by the time he’d come down from his shower even a Beano-reading nine-year old could see that he had a new spring in his step.

Unfortunately, Dad’s enthusiasm for running shrank faster than his polyester tracksters – most likely as a result of him attempting to practise his new hobby every morning and failing to allow enough time for his 40-something body to adapt to this new rigour. But his brief foray into the sport did give me a glimpse of the running boom that swept our nation in that era, a boom that – according to a survey conducted at the time – saw two million Brits donning their trainers at least once a week.

‘The purposes of this book are first to introduce you to the extraordinary world of running, and second, to change your life.’

And many, if not most, of them have one man to thank. Jim Fixx. Heard of him? His seminal work, The Complete Book of Running was released in 1977 and sold over a million copies, topping the New York Times bestseller list for months. Yet ten years earlier, Fixx was a non-runner who weighed in at over 15 stone, drank and smoked two packets of cigarettes a day. Running transformed not just his body – he lost more than four stone and went from last place in his debut 5-mile race to winning a state championship in his age group two years later – but his whole life. It was with the zeal of the newly converted that he set about writing The Complete Book of Running, which states in its introduction ‘the purposes of this book are first to introduce you to the extraordinary world of running, and second, to change your life.’

No wonder middle-aged men and women worldwide – especially those who had never dared to believe they could be runners – were lacing up their trainers in their droves. The only trouble is, seven years later, Fixx – the man who gave running to the masses – dropped dead while he was out running. He was 52 and had suffering a heart attack resulting from two blocked coronary arteries, forever proving to the lazy, the reluctant and the sceptical that running was a bad idea.

We are in the midst of another running boom, albeit a very different one from the first. And since its now forty years since Fixx’s book came out I opened it expecting to be amused, bemused, irritated and horrified by the advice and information it contained. And while it’s easy to snicker at statements like ‘the cure for an inflamed Achilles tendon is to run only on hard surfaces’ or ‘if you want to run well, try not to be satisfied with staying at a normal weight’ much of the book’s content remains valid – as well as interesting, insightful and witty. We like to believe that our sport has undergone nothing short of emancipation in the last forty years. You no longer have to be skinny, fast, male and competitive to be a runner – anyone can wear the label proudly, even if they have no intention of ever pinning on a race number. But on the yellowing pages of Fixx’s book many of the running converts he quotes talk not about race times or pounds lost but about a sense of independence or freedom gained, a lifting of anxiety or depression, relief from tension and improvements in self worth.

Running IS different this time round. Nowadays, it is as much a social activity as a form of exercise, a way to connect, not compete, a road to self-expression, not self-improvement.

Thanks to technology, social media, initiatives like Race for Life and Parkrun, its many benefits have filtered through to more people, different people. And this time, we’ve taken all the alarmist ‘Too much running bad for the heart! Headlines in our stride. But Jim Fixx and all those he inspired to run 40 years ago were the pioneers – who were stared at, mocked, imitated and warned off – they opened the doors for us. Thank you Jim.

This is an extended version of a Murphy’s Lore column, published in Runner’s World magazine.